My Rant

FLORENCE: I'm sitting in an Internet cafe killing time until my 6:30 train to Roma. It's raining outside like it has been since I got here. Rather than post my day-to-day adventures of Florence, which I will do soon, I thought I'd put my general thoughts on the city to paper while they're still fresh.

I've cycled through a number of adjectives to describe Florence. Seedy, but that doesn't work because there's too many middle aged tourists, no armies of touts and no strip clubs. Crass, but even though it heaves with tourists you can't escape the fact that this is THE city of Dante, the Medicis and the Ninja Turtles. No the best adjective for Florence is shoddy.

Shoddy in that the tourist attractions aren't up to European standards. The Uffizi is an absolute wreck. Totally incomparable to anything in Spain, England, Germany or the Netherlands. Shoddy in the fact that the streets are a twisted web of cheap internet places, cut price restaurants, souvenir stalls. Think of it as a Renaissance version of Surfer's Paradise.

And the tourists. Everywhere you look somebody is rushing off to see David, tour groups are following a flag brandishing leader, some middle aged American woman is whinging about pizza. The odd thing is that it there aren't, comparatively speaking, a lot of tourists under thirty. It is the most middle-aged tourist destination I've ever visited.

On the bright side though, the artworks are fantastic. The city looks fantastic when viewed from above. The river is beautiful and the gellati is fantastic. But I don't think I'll be visiting Florence again.